Sharing learning outcomes and success criteria

Program for the session

• Check in: introductions, aims and outcomes

• Sharing existing practice (write, pair and share)

• Generating outcomes and success criteria (carousel workshop)

• Generating outcomes and success criteria (debrief)

• Using outcomes and success criteria in practice (physical activity)

• Check out: evaluation, next steps

Sharing learning outcomes and success criteria

Why is it

important?

How can we do it

more effectively?

Why can it be difficult?

What are w

e talking

about?

“In this paper, the term ‘assessment’ refers to all those activities undertaken by teachers, and their students themselves, which provide information to be used as feedback to modify the teaching and learning activities in which they are engaged. Such assessment only becomes ‘formative assessment’ when the evidence is actually used to adapt the teaching work to meet the needs.”

Paul Black and Dylan William ‘Inside the Black Box’

What do we mean by ‘assessment for learning’?

• Gathering information about your learners’ learning

• Analyzing that information

• Using your analysis to inform your teaching to help your learners learn more effectively

Assessment for learning is about three things…

• Sharing learning outcomes: being clear about what students are expected to learn and that they know what they have to do to be successful

• Asking better questions: using questions that cause thinking and giving students more support to answer them

• Making feedback count: improving the quality of verbal and written feedback you give to students

• Promoting assessment by students: developing peer and self assessment to help students to give each other feedback as they are learning

Four practical areas

Formative assessment has four crucial elements

1. Students being clear about what they know/understand or can do now – the current level of performance

2. Students knowing what they need to achieve – the desired level of performance

3. Teachers knowing what help they need to give to students so that they can bridge the gap themselves

4. Students actually using that help to bridge the gap for themselves

• Deepen our current understandings about how sharing learning outcomes and success criteria can work in practice in the classroom

• Identify practical ways which can help you improve your practice

We are learning to…

• There is a high level of open and honest discussion

• You find the session interesting and/or enjoyable

• You deepen your understanding of how to use outcomes and success criteria more effectively

• You find at least one practical “take-away idea” you can use in your classroom

We will know we have been successful if…

Sharing learning outcomes and success criteria

Why is it

important?

How can we do it

more effectively?

Why can it be difficult?

What are w

e talking

about?

Draw a house

When marking your partner’s house please follow these guidelines:

• Roof 20 points

• Chimney 5 points

• Smoke coming out of chimney5 points

• Windows 5 points each (maximum 4)

• Door 10 points

• Garage 50 points

• Front drive 30 points

• Patio 60 points

• Swimming pool 100 points

Give your partner a score out of 300

Draw a house marking scheme

• Students are clearer about how to go about the task

• Students are more focused on task

• Students will persevere for longer

• The quality of students’ work improves

• Behavior especially time wasting tactics at the start of lessons improves

• The dialogue between students while they are working is more likely to focus on the learning intention rather than their own interests

• Students become automatically self evaluative

• Marking is easier

Shirley Clarke

Advantages of sharing outcomes and success criteria

Sharing learning outcomes and success criteria

Why is it

important?

How can we do it

more effectively?

Why can it be difficult?

What are w

e talking

about?

Carousel activity (page 4 in the handout)

1. Write down two or three learning outcomes on the topic you have been given.

2. Add one or two more to the existing list on the same topic.

3. Check if the outcomes are well expressed in child speak and not too broad or too specific and change them if necessary.

4. You should now have at least one good learning outcome now. Develop some success criteria for it and make sure they are well linked to the learning outcome, but avoid using the same words as the learning outcome.

• Is well-expressed in child-speak

• Is not too broad or too narrowly focused, not too short or too long term

• Is at the right level for the learners (just beyond what they do on their own)

• Contains words associated with learning (e.g. know that, understand, know how)

• Is closely linked to the success criteria that help the learner to achieve it

A good learning outcome...

• Are well linked to the learning outcome

• But avoid using the same words as the learning outcome

• Emphasize the process of learning where possible –what learners specifically need to do, to know or to think about to produce the end product

• Where they do describe an end product or a performance, give details about what will make that product or performance effective or successful

Good success criteria…

Learning outcome:

I am learning to read words I find difficult.

Success Criteria:

I know what to do when I am stuck at a word.

First attempt Primary example – reading

Learning Outcome:

• I know what to do when I am stuck at a word.

Success Criteria:

• I sound out the word (child speak for phonics).

• I see if it looks like a word I know (child speak for word patterns – ball, call, wall, etc.).

• I read the words around it (child speak for context clues, train arrives at the s…..).

• I look at the picture (child speak for picture clues).

Second attempt

Learning Outcomes:

“We are learning to be able to use common words and phrases to talk about ‘les vacances’ in French.”

Success Criteria:

“I know what strategies to use to develop my vocabulary on ‘les vacances’.”

First attempt Secondary example – modern languages

Learning Outcome:

• I know what strategies to use to develop my French vocabulary.

Context:

• ‘les vacances’

Success Criteria:

• I can find words and phrases in the list that I know.

• I can cluster like words and phrases together.

• I can explain to my partner why they are the same.

• I can tell my partner why theirs are the same.

• I can sort out all the words and phrases into five like groups.

Second attempt

Sharing learning outcomes and success criteria

Why is it

important?

How can we do it

more effectively?

Why can it be difficult?

What are w

e talking

about?

The terminology can get in the way

outcomes

objectives

intentions

expectations

success criteria

strategies for

success

evidence of success

targetsaims

grades

levels

We are talking about sharing three kinds of information on a regular basis with our learners and doing so as clearly and explicitly as possible…

What students can expect or are expected to learn by the end of the lesson or series of lessons

This can be thought of as the ‘goal’ or the ‘end’ – the reason why they are doing a specific task or undertaking a particular piece of work.

1. The learning outcome, intention or objective

What are we intending to learn from doing this task?

This is the evidence both students and teachers will need to know whether or to what extent they have been successful.

They describe “what both the teacher and the student are looking for in the product the student produces or the performance the student gives.”

2. The success criteria or evidence of success

How will we know we have succeeded in learning?

The success criteria can also be descriptions of the strategies learners might use to produce the end product or be able to give the performance. In this sense they can be the means to the end.

3. The success criteria or strategies for success

What do we need to do to succeed?

Sharing learning outcomes and success criteria

Why is it

important?

How can we do it

more effectively?

Why can it be difficult?

What are w

e talking

about?

The concept of learning outcomes and success criteria needs to be disentangled from the idea of standards, grades

and levels.

Standards Learning outcomes and success criteria

- What are they?Broad descriptions of the levels of performance required for grades.

- What are they?Specific descriptions of what learners can expect to learn, what quality learning looks like and the strategies for success.

- What are they used for?To monitor the progress students are making against nationally agreed standards over a period of time.

-What are they used for?To help scaffold students’ learning on an on-going daily basis.

- Who are they for? Mainly school administrators, parents and the wider community for the purpose of accountability.

- Who are they for?Mainly for teachers to use with students to help them learn and become more effective learners.

• It helps you to decide which is which

• How they fit together

• How they relate to the activity

Write learning outcomes and success criteria at the same time

• Closed skills? use quotation marks

• Open skills? write complex sentences

• Knowledge? know what latitude and longitude are

• Concepts? understand the importance of healthy living

• Applications? how to use Pythagorean theorem

Writing learning outcomes forces you to be clear about what you really, really want students to learn:

“We are learning to be able to tell what is alive and what is not alive.”

Success criteria:

• We know that there is no one way of telling whether something is alive or not alive.

• We can put things into one of three categories: alive, once alive and now dead, or never been alive.

• We can explain our thinking in writing.

• We can describe the “rule” or “reason” we used to decide whether something is alive or not alive.

Spot the difference!

“Know the basic life processes common to humans and other animals” might become…

• Strategies for success

• Evidence of success

• Before, after and/or during the task

Devising success criteria makes you really, really think about what will best help students learn and when they need that help…

We are learning to:

• be able to juggle three scarves

Evidence of success:

• We can juggle three scarves cross throwing

• We can do this for at least ten seconds

• We can still do it after a period of time has elapsed

Strategies for success:

• I held the scarves palms down.

• I started with the hand with two scarves in it.

• I concentrated on the throwing and said to myself ‘throw, throw, throw….”

• I kept time to the music.

• I threw across and flicked them high.

• I caught the scarves palms down.

• I caught the first scarf just before I threw the third one.

• I picked up the scarves I dropped and kept going.

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